So, as we know, equipping yourself with a metal weapon, shield or bow can cause you to attract lightning during a storm. This can be either painful, or hilarious, depending on whether or not you have the lightning helm.
But, my question is does wearing more metal equipment increase the frequency, or decrease the timer for attracting lightning strikes, and can wearing metal armour affect this as well?
When you are in the middle of a thunderstorm, anything metallic will turn you into a lightning rod as long as you have it equipped. Based on this answer, you can see which items will attract the lightning by looking at them in the menu.
Wearing metallic gear does not change the frequency, but it does increase the changes of being struck by lightning. Every 5 minutes in game (which is 5 seconds outside of game), the lightning will find a target to strike. The more metallic gear you are wearing, the greater the chances are being the target.
If you start to spark, you will have 10 seconds to switch out your gear or warp to a safe location.
Source
It does for me, as I used to have a metal shield equipped most of the time and never got shocked, but once I got a full suit of armor I got zapped instantly after equipping it
